Spain will apparently get 5 more seats in the EU parliament in 2019, going up from 54 to 59. This is the largest amount of Spanish seats since 1999 (64 seats).

Since Spain uses a purely proportional system, 1 at-large constituency and no threshold, this will benefit small parties like VOX or PACMA. I wouldn't be surprised if they both get in. In fact, VOX would already have an MEP if Spain had had 59 seats in 2014

It's not a poll or anything like that though. It's just the 2014 result but with 59 seats instead of 54. Obviously nowadays UPyD would be extremely lucky to even hold 1 seat (one of their MEPs, Maite Pagazartundua, is somewhat famous for MEP standards though I doubt she'll hold her seat) and Cs would grow a lot.

I guess UPyD's closest comparison here might be CDS (another centrist party, the spiritual successor to UCD) in the 1994 EP elections, when the party had almost completely disappeared and everyone relevant had left but their candidate (Eduard Punset, later famous for his documentaries) was still somewhat famous. They got 1%, not enough to get a seat but still a very good showing.

I did not expect PP and PSOE to both grow by 2 though, I thought the new seats would be allocated in a more egalitarian fashion.

Also some regional polling. I guess we'll see more of these next year when the regonal elections are actually imminent

IBES for Balearic Islands regional elections (30 for a majority)

MES are left wing nationalists and I think open to hypothetical unification with Catalonia, El PI are right wing nationalists and probably opposed on that but favourable to more decentralization. They are the successor to Unió Mallorquina, which was arguably the most corrupt party in Spanish history relative to their size.

So the left wing majority basically evaporates and it would be too close to call. However unlike in other regions PI might not automatically join with PP and Cs. In fact the Balearic Islands have already seen "everyone against PP" coalitions, like in 1999 and 2007. I still think if the left loses its majority the most likely scenario is PP-Cs-PI but it's not guaranteed.

Very slim. The current distribution in Barcelona's town hall is (21 councillors for an overall majority):

En Comú 11CiU 10Cs 5ERC 5PSC 4PP 3CUP 3

However I seriously doubt that a CiU-Cs-PP-PSC no confidence vote would work. CiU is radically different to the 3 others on the independence stuff (which was part of the reason why PSC and Podemos broke up in Barcelona) and PSC wouldn't support such a right wing government.

I guess Colau will stay for now but each time she seems like she will have a tougher time being reelected. I wouldn't be surprised if she was defeated. And that's considering that Barcelona is one of the safest towns for Podemos and that their next rival on the left (ERC) has half their seats!

Seeing as Iglesias is so unpopular, could he be ousted or persuaded to move on? Is Errejon still part of the party?

Errejón is still part of the party, but it seems he'll just run for regional president in Madrid and has been out of the spotlight for a while. In fact I think Iglesias has basically taken out anyone who could contest his leadership.

I think all 4 main party leaders (Rajoy, Sánchez, Iglesias, Rivera) will all make it to the next general election.

Well, here's the latest poll. If someone cares it also has other questions (like whether Spain should be more or less centralized or what worries Spaniards the most) and some crosstabs (by age, party and a couple others). It's generally considered the most complete poll:

Podemos and Cs have been working on a new electoral reform deal by themselves. They are trying to limit themselves to reforms that don't require constitutional reforms so that they can pass it without PP, just by convincing PSOE.

Today Podemos presented their proposal, which has 4 basic points:

-Lowering the voting age to 16

-Introducing "zipper lists". As in lists must alternate between men and women. Iirc Podemos and PSOE already do this by themselves, they want to make it mandatory for everyone else

-Replacing the D'Hondt method by Sainte Lague.

-Removing the "begged vote" system for Spaniards abroad.

-A joint "mailing" for ballots. In Spain ballots for the main parties are sent to your home instead of you having to pick them up. This obviously benefits large parties and it will remain this way, this is more of a cost saving measure.

-Mandatory debates

Of these the only one that has a real effect is the 3rd measure. While D'Hondt per se is not what makes the Spanish system not fully proportional (that would be provincial constituencies) it still makes it better. For reference the 2016 results would have been:PP: 122 (-15)PSOE: 84 (-1)Podemos: 77 (+6)Cs: 44 (+12)ERC: 9 (nc)PDECat: 7 (-1)PNV: 4 (-1)Bildu: 2 (nc)CC: 1 (nc)

As for the others, lowering the voting age to 16 will almost certainly fail. Mandatory debates will probably fail as well. The others will probably be successful.

In general this is an underwhelming reform but is better than nothing. Of course we now have to wait for Cs' counteroffer and whether PSOE will even support their efforts as well. I certainly hope so but it's far from guaranteed.

--X--

Also, Catalonia has been having trouble getting a regional president. Puigdemont can't return to Spain and courts have determined that in order to be elected regional president he has to be in parliament. Secessionists wanted to elect him anyways but in the end the parliament speaker Roger Torrent (who had the power to call or not the parliamentary meeting) chickened out at the last minute and cancelled the meeting

So now ERC, JxCat and CUP are negotiating. Puigdemont apparently doesn't want to become irrelevant like Mas before him which is causing trouble.

The most common solution I've seen proposed is the "dual presidency" where there would be a symbolic president and a real one. ERC wants the legislature to behave normally and Puigdemont to be symbolic (think of the Spanish king). Puigdemont wants to be the real president, with a real parliament to elect him (he proposed the "mayors meeting", ie a meeting of all secessionists mayors) and the institutions in Barcelona being just puppets.

Unionist parties aren't happy and I guess they would sue but IMO a dual presidency would be legal. It wouldn't be that different from Kazcynski in Poland or Dragnea in Romania.

Apparently that poll also had a 2nd part, this time about the 2019 local elections. They polled the 52 provincial capitals and claim that PP+Cs would be able to get up to 35 of them. There are no date on the rest for some reason. The map looks like this

Again, other than Girona (and to a lesser extent Barcelona) the others are very hard to predict because of post electoral alliances. It will depend on how much the nationalist axis influences the standard left-right axis

Santa Cruz will probably stay with CC, probably through CC-PP. In Las Palmas PP-Cs doesn't get a majority but they could probably count on UxGC, a PP split. Or in CC if it somehow gets representation but that seems very unlikely.

There could be PSOE-Cs alliances. Particularly in places where PSOE is the largest party but not just limited to those. It would depend more on local issues I guess.

And yes, Podemos doesn't technically exist at the local level but let's be honest, most people who vote for one of those independent lists probably knows they are voting for Podemos. But yes, they can get very complicated.

Not sure if they'll do that again. I guess it will depend on the local specifics, their relation with the local IU branch, etc.

Tack, could you discuss a little bit about Cs's platform and placement on the political spectrum, if you don't mind?

I thought everyone already knew about them. But sure, no problem.

Economically they are quite pro-free market. So they support lower taxes, entrepeneurs, more flexible labour laws and the like. One of their key proposals for the last elections was a single contract type, to replace the current dual system of temporary and indefinite contracts.

In terms of social stuff they are centrist I think. They support legalizing surrogate motherhood. Originally they had 2 quite conservative proposals: keeping the law that makes illegal inmigrants only able to get emergancy healthcare and ammending the 2004 gender violence law which according to them unfairly criminalizes men. They've gone back on the 2nd and I think also on the first but I'm not sure on that one.

In general they are seen as more liberal than PP though and have none of the ties to the Catholic Church that PP has (at least nominally)

As for other stuff they are quite tough on corruption and want a stronger central government. They want to abolish the Senate and the provincial governments.

And of course they are quite hardline on the Catalan issue, opposing any deals with the nationalists. They also oppose the special Basque financing system. This is expected since they originally were born as an explicitly anti Catalan nationalist party.

In general they are your standard European centrist liberal party. I've often seen Rivera compared to Macron.

Tack, could you discuss a little bit about Cs's platform and placement on the political spectrum, if you don't mind?

I thought everyone already knew about them. But sure, no problem.

I did (in fact, they are one of my favorite parties), but from my end, I sometimes have trouble finding their stances on issues outside of Spanish unionism so easily. In addition, many have described it as being anything from center-left to center-right, so i just wanted to know how someone in Spain would describe them.